Americans and stupidity

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Embarrassingly Stupid Americans -- One in Five Believes Sun Revolves Around Earth

The title of this article, that an embarrassingly high number of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the Earth, is only one point argued by the Washington Post’s Susan Jacoby, in her attempt to prove that Americans are in serious intellectual trouble, facing a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

What else is signaling that Americans are becoming increasingly dumbed-down as a society?

Reading -- of books, newspapers and magazines -- is on the decline. A 2007 study even found that 80 percent of American families did not buy or read a book in 2006.

Attention spans are declining; Jacoby suggests this is due to television and videos. For instance, between 1968 and 1988, the average sound bite on the news for a presidential candidate dropped from 42.3 seconds to 9.8 seconds. By 2000, according to a Harvard study, the daily candidate bite was down to just 7.8 seconds.
General knowledge is eroding. This is evidenced not only by the fact that one in five U.S. adults believe the sun revolves around the Earth, but also many others.
Yet, it’s not bad enough that knowledge is quickly declining in the United States. On top of that, there is an arrogance about this lack of knowledge, almost as if a good portion of the population is saying, “We know we’re ignorant, but we don’t care!”

Consider, for instance, that a 2006 survey by National Geographic-Roper found that nearly half of young Americans did not think it was necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news was being made. And another one-third felt it was “not at all important” to know a foreign language.

Why is this so concerning? Because …

Fear and Ignorance Go Hand in Hand

The more that you are kept in the dark, either due to your own lack of inquisitiveness or the workings of an unscrupulous industry (such as the food industry that markets junk foods and soda to children as though it is something they should be consuming), the easier you are to manipulate.

And this is where a population of people who do not possess their own knowledge base will easily believe, for instance, that they must quickly get vaccinated to protect themselves against an imaginary pandemic like the bird flu, or that food from their local supermarket is somehow safer than food grown by a farmer down the road.

Now, also factor into this, the US's idol status to and influence of the other nations of the world, and you see the same trends building up in other "white establishment" nations. Such as Europe, Australia, Canada, etc...

Source :
Washington Post February 17, 2008

I hope that is not really true because if it is the world is in trouble (or is it already with G. W. Bush).

Ignorant people are easier to control.

Ignorant people are especially easy to sell things to. The American media makes it's money through advertising (and has a lot more advertising time than say, the BBC does in the UK, which has 0 advertising).

In the US the most ethical presidents are assassinated, and their whole political system quite obviously favours companies over communities (Why? They don't do anything for your economy, or provide jobs, unless you happen to be Chinese.)

The health care system is a complete joke, that plays off people's selfishness, which is another American problem alongside ignorance. Look at the sue culture, and the way everyone thinks paying for their own health care is preferable to everyone paying higher taxes and everyone getting 'free' health care. How are you supposed to get the help you need if you're born with a life long condition, when your chances of getting medical insurance are reduced by you having an existing condition. You end up paying more than a healthy person, and being further disabled by the costs. Who benefits? The insurance companies/drugs companies.


What is most worrying is the fact that the U.S. is quite obviously looking at a depression on a huge scale that could send the entire country back to the stone age, all caused by it's corporations exporting jobs, reducing material exports to almost zero (I haven't seen 'made in America' like ever), and the whole country bleeding money and building up debts of trillions of dollars.

If the Iraq war hadn't happened then Saddam would be selling his oil in Euros, most of the Middle East would have followed suit, and without the support of being tied to the worlds biggest commodity (ie. being bought by every other nation in order to trade oil), the U.S. dollar's value would have plummeted.

As it is Iran has set up it's own oil market to trade in Euros/Yuan/Whatever, and with China/Russia making some very clear threats of the retaliation/nuking kind if the U.S. does invade Iran, this time there is either going to be the crash in the U.S. dollar value, or the U.S. is going to initiate WWIII to protect it's currency, probably spouting the same B.S. terrorist/Iranian Nuclear reactor crap it's been feeding it's people to hide them from the truth about what's going on, and is well known to anyone whose media isn't owned by a corporation whose bosses will leave the country should things go tits up, and move to the Canary Islands where all their billions are banked.


Unfortunately, ignorantly saying 'conspiracy theory' saves you having to think about stuff and having to go and read anything (acknowledging the dots and then joining them), so I'm just left feeling very sorry for either the few intelligent Americans there are, who will be left in a country full of hungry, homeless and above all well armed ignorant people when the inevitable happens, or everyone should the American government show how truly dumb they can be, and start WWIII.

one of the reason america is going down the hole is that most people think they deserve more than what they got without working for it so they just sit around collecting welfare and complaining how hard they got it, another one is the schools, try being in one for a day and you would see the decline of society in these teenage idiots whose life dream is to become an actress, or a rapper or a football player.

We gotten ourselves into the mess we're in. Why, even houses are getting to be too spacious and lush around here. There is so much more interest in wealth nonsence than edgucation and actaul survival. Yes, my United States society can be considered stupid and ignorant quite easily.

I guess I'll throw in my $0.02. I am a born American and I love this country very much, there are still many people who come over here and are ever so thankful for the opportunities and freedom they receive that is offered nowhere else (or at least, not in very many other places), but unfortunately, as with many other civilizations in history, excess wealth and opportunity is causing people to become lazy. I think the problem is that in our entire history we've only seen two attacks on our soil; one in 1941, and one in 2001.

-We have a -2.2% savings rate.
-Many brilliant students don't know much about major figures such as Hitler, Stalin, etc. I learned a little in the school system about them, but most of what I know about them has been from doing research myself.
-Our spending on entertainment is embarassingly high. Movies, music, leisure time, etc., are the obsessions of this society.
-I did and experiment in my college class. It was in a typical college freshmen class, I showed three pictures of three different politicians and asked by a show of hands who knew the names of these politicians, or even recognized them. I used Bill Frist, Nanci Pelosi, and Donald Rumsfeld. Except for one extra hand at some point, only two people knew who any of the icons were; me and the instructor. At the time too, anyone should have known who Donald Rumsfeld was. Bill Frist shouldn't have been a long shot either at the time. Nanci Pelosi, maybe. In short, it scares me that some people have the right to vote.

Like I said, I love my country and I am ever thankful to be here, even in the state with the worst economy here, though I think that this does need change.

Does anyone feel Europe is going the same way? Major European nations have a higher standard of living as well; do you see these same trends occuring?

There are an awful lot of people in the USA below the poverty level. See http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/26/news/ec ... /index.htm

To attribute this to laziness is a fine indication of US ignorance. The facts are available if you take the trouble to find out.

Because the sum of intelligence remains constant but the population is growing...

I do feel that the UK is following close behind the US, wherever it may be going. Tony Blair's government pretty much bought about chav culture which is as ignorant as a lot of American culture.

I know my history and am thoroughly ashamed of what my country did to achieve it's standard of living. The same is true for almost any European country, they almost all had empires and benefitted from slavery or exploitation of foreign countries.

What most people are unaware of is the extent to which this continues, with first world countries holding back the developing nations, so as to keep a cheap labor force for the extraction of their resources. If people in Africa and the Middle East were payed the same kinds of wages as people in the west, then the minerals mined there and the oil produced would have a much higher price. There are elements in our governments and intelligence agencies who think it is OK to incite civil wars and install dictatorships in foreign countries, to maintain our influence over their governments.

What I find particularly disturbing is the way people in any country think this isn't possible, like how our people can't be capable of doing anything wrong, due to our association with them, and only foreign powers act immorally. These people think it's OK to keep a bunch of useless foreigners in their place, because it benefits the folks back home. Just because it's your country doesn't mean people like Hitler, Stalin or Mao Tse Dong can't exist in it or it's government, although it may not be in the top postion (Consider how a lot of the world percieves G.W. Bush though).

While I admire very much the idea that anyone in America can be successful if they only work hard, there is still a class barrier, where you can be the best and most dedicated employee, only to have someone of a higher social class be promoted in preference to you. Humans, as primates, still have it in their nature to fight for social status (as any aspie should know), so there are huge barriers to any success, that should be especially obvious to those of us on the autistic spectrum.

In fact the kind of people who can rise in social circles frequently tend towards the brown-nosing sycophant end of the spectrum. Why else are so many politicians smug/smarmy/lying/untrustworthy and asking for a punch in the face?

At the same time as the virgin, undeveloped America was an opportunity for many to make a new successful life free from oppression and slavery, it was a prime environment for existing oppressors to develop.

Right through human history there have been those who rose to the top, and exploited everyone else for their own benefit. Europe's history is full of civil wars and deposed monarchies who took far more than they gave in return (although true equality never results, as there are always people who can exploit the new environment, like Robespierre after Louis XVI in France, and Stalin after Tzar Nicholas in Russia).

The US does not have such a long history taught (possibly for a reason, the schools there do seem organised to produce compliant little consumers with delusions of becoming actors/sports/pop stars) to remind it's people of how liberty and equality were constantly fought for before the US's existence, and will also need to be fought for continually, as there is always someone who has more than everyone else, and is not willing to share. And no, in the huge majority of cases they did not work for what they have, they inherited it, or attained it through lending at interest. That is the sin of usury for Muslims, and should be a sin to every other faith too, as it gives to people who do no work, and takes perpetually from those who have nothing, forcing them to work, essentially slavery. Go read a bible and you will see that Jesus was prompted to violent anger by money lenders. The stock market is a form of usury, where you buy a share and the company is required by law to make every attempt to increase the value of that share (at the expense of it's employees and customers), yet you do no work.

Usury is rife in modern culture, and it is how the extremely rich stay rich and get richer, while spending their time on the golf courses, and on holiday in the Bahamas, while the majority of people spend their lives working long hours just to cover the interest on the loans for their TV/car/house.


While in communist China the ruling party bans and restricts access to information deemed damaging to their policies, the corporations in the US and their major shareholders can drown it out with their media organisations, and offer cheap books to underfunded schools from their publishing houses.

I am not surprised , after reading threads and posts of ragtime and Iamnotaparaket and the ideas of many other creationists on other websites I can clearly see that the main source of stupidity in US is an ancient fallacy book called the Bible, it is well known that the rate of believers in US is much higher than Europe hence the rate of stupids is much higher , don't understand me wrong ...I am not saying that every believer is stupid or every atheist is smart but I am quite sure that stupidity and fundamental faith are positively correlated.

I am sure that Latin American countries are even worse but I cant read Spanish.

ugh, don't remind me. i feel ripped off only being 23 and now facing a very bleak future and i'm not one of the ignorant/apathetic many.

the cattle's coming home.

I don't think people are stupid because they don't agree with the latest theory. When most people thought the sun revolved around the Earth and the Earth was flat, were those who disagreed with them stupid because they believed the Earth was round?

Last edited by zendell on 10 Apr 2008, 3:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Don't forget Newton. Gravity and it's related theories can explain and predict planetary motion to an extremely accurate level. If the sun revolves around the earth then how should these theories be rewritten?

Actually any point can be said to be the center of the universe. If one takes the sun as the center, then the galactic center has a rather strange path through the sky.

Of course, all those scientists are dead so there is no way to confirm what they now believe.

We don't have a lot of assassinations, not only that, but given that JFK was known for cheating on his wife a lot, the issue of his ethicality does have some questions.

Not a joke, just very poorly designed due to a number of problems. The issue isn't lawsuits so much as just waste because the system isn't designed well due to how government has promoted the employer based system of insurance.


Stone age? Not likely. The worst thing that could happen is just that we have a major depression, but for the entire economic system to be destroyed is usually not that likely. Not only that, but your idea of the cause is sort of screwy, it was caused by poor measures for risk management by corporations in the housing market and has bled over to the rest of our financial systems. The issue of our trade deficit is not a major component of the recession inducing elements of our economic crisis. Really though, the trade deficit was not really caused by corporations, some basic macroeconomics tells us that in an open economy, if we have an increase in government spending with no decline in consumption(or an increase in consumption due to tax cuts and no decline in government spending) or investment then our net exports decline. Expressed mathematically like so:
Y = C(Y-T) + G + I(r*) + NX where Y(economic output) is approximated as constant(as is typical of the long-run time frame economic model vs the short run or very-long run model) either G(government spending) or C(consumption) increases while I(investment) remains fixed due to the international interest rate being unaffected, we must see NX(net exports) decrease.
This is empirically seen with the rise of our trade deficit coming in with Reagan's expansion of the federal deficit.


Perhaps there is some neo-colonialism continuing, however, to a great extent, a lot of the issue is simply that their economies are less developed than ours. Frankly, Africa doesn't export a lot of stuff to us, Asia does and South America exports more as well, but Africa rather than Asia or South America has more political instability, so, the entire theory that we are doing this just for cheap crap seems sort of iffy just from that alone. Not only that, but the theory that we oppress the Middle East runs into question given the power of OPEC and the largess of some of these oil states, with some having rather spectacularly high GDPs per capita with Kuwait having a higher GDP per capita than the US, and the UAE having a higher GDP per capita than most of Europe and one around the same size as the US's.


Not that many people escaping slavery going to America, probably a lot more slaves or indentured servants coming over. Not only that, but as for "existing oppressors" do you mean modern ones or the ones at that time? The reason I ask is that royalty was not so much enriched by America as independent individuals.


Well, no, our schools just suck. There is not really much purpose, just sucking. Really though, I doubt that even if schools were to teach well, that they would teach a message biased towards the left as such. I mean, the US for example was not built from the idea of "people not sharing", it was built more on the idea "I want freedom so that way I can have enough stuff to not share". That is oversimplifying of course, but only the fundies were there for reasons other than their own freedom or property, and the fundies were just there because America was the ripest place to form their little theocracies like cults today try to separate themselves from the world.


Usury is evil? I really don't know how to react to that. I consider the idea of that just stupid though. Usury does not give to those who don't work, it gives money for work already done. Think about it, the original money MUST have come from somewhere, therefore someone did something to get it. Because that individual did not want to consume the resources immediately, that person SAVED their money, however, somebody else wanted to use it, well, frankly, to let somebody else borrow money is a cost, as lent money is riskier and less liquid, therefore, in order to deal with this loss of value for his earned resources, he asks for some part of the value that his resources add to the other person's product. As for money lenders being slavers? Well, that is also wrong, without the money lender to provide capital then worker would be less well off and without the worker to work the money lender would be less well off, it is a mutually beneficial arrangement as the money belongs to the money lender and the work to the worker. Not only that, but really, the issue of the moneylenders in the bible is one where they were working in the temple and the problem was where they were working(too many socialists take this completely out of context), Jesus also gave the parable of the talents where a master gives his servants some money and tells them to use it well, the servants who then with their original sum brought back more money and in Matt 25:27 he tells the servant who wasted the money "Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest." which is Jesus himself promoting usury and lacks ambiguity on his support of the system. As well, the argument that Christianity promotes usury has seemed dead since John Calvin argued for usury, even arguing that usury is no different than rent. As well, you are right, the stock market is usury, however, corporate profits are a good thing as profits drive the economy, frankly in a market, competition causes for profits to go to companies that please their customers, and competition causes workers to go to the employer that benefits them the most. Frankly, under your ideology, the only acceptable system is socialism, and frankly, I would argue that over 9 out of 10 economists would argue that a socialist system would at best tend to underperform a capitalist system from many measures and at worst fail completely, so honestly, I would say that the orthodoxy is not stupid for these ideas.


Usury is the backbone of society. However, for the extremely rich to stay at the top, they would usually have to perform usury particularly well, and only provide capital to organizations most deserving of it(Warren Buffett) and thus play a social role as a capital allocator, which is necessary under all economic systems, or they would have to provide or organize the provision of a useful service. Not only that, but even though you can argue that people would be better off without the debt, that does not mean that they would be better off without the loan.